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IT’S FREE – BUT IS IT LEGAL?
Added: (Tue Aug 26 2008)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, 26th AUGUST 2008 – Publishers are up in arms over a new website that encourages users to illegally upload and share magazines.
Mygazines.com bills itself as “your free place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles”, and already hosts entire issues of popular titles including Cosmopolitan, Wired, Good Housekeeping, Maxim and Glamour.
With the music and movie industries increasingly clamping down on internet pirates, there seems little doubt that Mygazines.com faces a fight for survival from angry copyright holders.
Clearly those behind Mygazines.com knew they were on shaky ground – to host their controversial creation, they chose Swedish company PRQ. PRQ has a reputation for being prepared to host pretty much any website, legal or otherwise. It shot to notoriety in 2006 when it was raided by the police for hosting The Pirate Bay, an illegal file sharing site.
There is an obvious demand for easy online access to magazine content, but according to Wayne Williams of Digi-zines.com, stealing from copyright holders is not the answer. “Everyone likes getting something for free, but posting copyright material without the owner’s permission is theft, pure and simple.”
“The team behind our website, Digi-zines.com, worked in the magazine publishing industry for years, so we’ve no wish to rip off our friends and colleagues! Instead, Digi-zines.com simply links to dozens of great free digital mags that have been put online with the full knowledge and approval of their creators. Titles like Monkey, Shortlist and iGizmo are not only great reads, they’re totally free and legal.”
ENDS
Information for editors:
Founded in April 2008, Digi-zines.com (www.digi-zines.com) is based in Manchester, England. For further information contact Wayne Williams, Editor of Digi-zines.com, at wayne@digi-zines.com.